Sharks vs. Penguins: Stalock getting second start, Vlasic out with Fedun up and in — plus another Southern California childhood reunion for Nieto

The Sharks have a chance to finish this road trip 4-3 after starting it with just one win in the first four games. With wins in Detroit and Philadelphia, the Sharks have reduced thei gap between themselves and third place in the Pacific Division to six points — still formidable of course, especially when they would have to leapfrog two teams to get that playoff berth.

Better than things looked five days ago, but not enough to get me to regret the “what went wrong” analysis that appeared in Saturday’s print edition. What? You missed it? Go here now.

No, that doesn’t cover every point that could be made and doesn’t go into the level of detail some of you might prefer. Consider it, again, directed for a general audience that may have just noticed the Sharks have little chance of making the playoffs and might wonder what happened. Consider it a crash course and you can find it here if you haven’t read it already.

Now, looking ahead.

Alex Stalock will start consecutive games for the first time since early December when the Sharks face the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight. Marc-Edouard Vlasic will be out of the lineup and Taylor Fedun has been called up from Worcester to take his place on the roster. Scott Hannan is healthy enough to play after leaving the 3-2 shootout win over the Philadelphia Flyers early after being smshed into the board. All that and a little more, by the way, is covered in the online story filed earlier and available here .

****Both players and Todd McLellan say energy levels better be high for the Penguins even though this wraps up a two-week, 14-day trip with a set of back-to-backs.

“We have no other choice,” McLellan said. “There’s times throughout the year when you’re at the back end of a road trip and you’re hoping that your energy storage is high enough that you can come out and compete. Sometimes it doesn’t work that well. But tonight we better show up and empty the tank.

“Everything we have has to stay on the ice surface and everybody has to find a way to contribute and we’ll worry about the next day when we get to it,” he continued. “That’s kind of been our theme all along. Another step in the stairway if you will.”

Matt Nieto said he didn’t think there were energy concerns at this point.
“It’s fine. We know how important these games are<" he said. "We’re treating it just like any other. Energy won’t be an issue.”

And he bought into the suggestion that back-to-back games that hasten an end to this long trip might even be a good thing rather than having an extra day away from home.

“Yeah, that’s nice," he said. "It’s also nice that we played at 1 yesterday. A little more rest. We’ll have energy tonight and we’ll be ready to go. Hopefully we can end it on a good note here.”

****For Nieto, the game is another chance to play against Penguins forward and longtime friend Beau Bennett, another Southern Californian who was actually a linemate of his when both were 12-year-olds in peewee competition there.

The other linemate? Emerson Etem of the Anaheim Ducks.

"We did pretty well back then and it's crazy that all three of us ended up in this league. It's really cool. It's fun playing against guys that you knew growring up and I'm looking forward to it."

Any specific memories from that first season together?

"The only thing I remember is that our first game together, we scored within the first 10-to-12 seonds. We were all laughing and we did pretty well together."

****The Sharks came close to facing their former back-up as the Penguins played Saturday as well. But Thomas Greiss got the start — and win — against the Coyotes so that means San Jose will face Marc-Andre Fleury.

As it turned out, Greiss would have gone against one of his former teams either way as he played a season with the Coyotes after leaving San Jose.

“I guess they just flipped a coin,” he said Sunday morning as far as which of his exes he would face.

****Not to be a killjoy or anything, but how about a little perspective before anybody gets their hopes too high when it comes to the Sharks and their playoff chances.

Yes, they're better than they were a week ago and recent wins are something to build on.
But, before the Detroit game, San Jose had a 0.7 percent chance of making the post-season, according to the educated guessers at sportsclubstats.com. After the win in Detroit? It was 0.9 perrcent. And now, after the second win in Philadelphia? It's 2.3 percent.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.